Running Week - December 10th - 16th 2007

[alpinerabbit]

On Sunday, boyfriend and I repeated the race that was "my first" a year ago: 8.6 km in 4 rounds, with a hill on each.
The goal was to either get the same time but feel better, or be a little faster even.

It was freezing, but dry, and as soon as we were off, the cold was not noticeable anymore. I did feel better - last year on round 3 I got lactic acid in my legs already, started getting side stitches and energy dropping off, me thinking why is boyfriend speeding up, and him thinking why is she slowing down - a big sufferfest on round 4.
This year was fine. Heart rate was high - around 170 in round one and then up to 188 and such, in the end I averaged 182, one bpm higher than last year.
I managed to turn it up one gear (awright, maybe only 1/10th of one gear) on the last 1K or so, and lo and behold, at 47:34 - minus 40 seconds to last year. Or so I thunk.

Turns out I remembered my time from last year as 48:15 when it was really 47:15.

But the feeling better part of it is worth those 19 seconds. Coulda lost them any time in the "traffic jam" -
A total of about 8000 had signed up for our distance. They start them in waves of well, about 2000 I guess. There was trouble passing folks.

So the training has paid off - even though I could not do all of the plan.